Haven’t posted since May. Coronavirus has turned 2020 upside down. I was supposed to race once or twice a month this year. I was supposed to go to the Legacy Tri and meet up with my USAT Foundation Ambassador teammates. I was supposed to go to Hawaii 70.3. I was supposed to race at the USAT Age Group Nationals. I was supposed to do super fun local races like the Sylvan Beach Tri and River Cities. But, everything has been postponed or cancelled.
There is no complaining because every person on the face of the earth is dealing with tremendous loss and grief. The death and sickness are heart-wrenching. But I believe the loss humans are feeling from losing touch with the people they love and the loss of doing the things they love is equally devastating and sad. Doing everything I can to hang on and keep training so those endorphins keep flowing through my veins.
The most devastating incident this season was on June 25th. I went to sleep that Wednesday night with the car all packed to drive to Lubbock for the 70.3, one of three IRONMAN races this summer that were “supposed to happen.” That week, COVID numbers in Texas started to rise rather abruptly after what had appeared to be a “recovery” period. Mike Reilly was going to call the race. He drove two days from California to Lubbock. I woke up Thursday morning. I had already decided I wouldn’t be looking at Facebook because there was so much controversy even among the athletes on whether this race should happen or not. I woke up to a text from my coach telling me she didn’t want to see me get in the car and drive when the race had been cancelled. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. Cancelled. Wow. I was so mad. I couldn’t talk to anyone. Or post on Facebook. I was just mad. So I unpacked. And pouted. And then I decided I was going to do a 56 mile ride on Saturday and get a PR. So I went out to Carl Barton Jr. Park and did a 56 mile ride in 3:01; an all time PR for me. My husband met me at the “finish line” and brought me a pink iced doughnut.
Happy with the PR but still disappointed, I decided to find a race. USAT had sent out an email with a list of all sanctioned races. So that next Tuesday, I laid in bed and clicked through to race after race, looking for one that wasn’t “virtual” or “canceled” or “postponed”. After dozens, I came across the Omaha Triathlon. The website said it was a go, but I didn’t believe it. So I emailed the race director. A few minutes later at 8 pm, he emailed me back “Yes, it’s on.” So I replied, “I will be there.”
I grew up in Omaha. Lived there for 20 years. Went to grade school, high school and college there. Gave birth to my first two children there. My sister and her family still live there. Hell, I was Miss Omaha 1984. So, seemed like this was meant to be.
Standing Bear Lake where the race is held is just 3 miles from where I graduated from high school. I don’t really remember this lake or ever going there oddly enough.
Now to tell my husband that I want to drive 14.5 hours each way in 3 weeks for an Olympic race. I reminded him he knew I was crazy when he married me.
So I signed up for the race. I didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid it would be cancelled. Every day, I started my morning by checking the race Facebook page and website to make sure it was still on. Even the day we left, I kept looking. The news showed that Nebraska was one of the only states in the country where COVID numbers were not rising.
The drive to the race was revealing. Every time we stopped, the “mask” situation was different. First stop, everyone had on a mask. By the time we were in Kansas, we where the only people in the gas station with masks on.
I knew this race experience was going to be a far cry from something like IRONMAN TEXAS. But I didn’t care. It was a very small race; about 150 participants. They asked us to check our bike the day before; not typical for a short race, but was part of Return to Safe Racing. Packet pick-up was literally picking up an envelope off the ground. Three bikes to a rack. All checked in.
Got a little freaked out when I saw the race course. It had been defined as flat. The course was the four streets around Standing Bear Lake. But the total elevation was 1800. That’s quite a lot for a girl from SE Texas. I brought my “new” QR bike without even thinking about it. This bike has synchro shifting which I really hadn’t mastered yet. The one time I had ridden hills with it in Texas was a bit of a mess. But nothing to do now but race.
Race morning, the weather was amazing. July 19th in Houston is a miserable mixture of humidity and heat. The air here felt so cool and fresh. We parked about a mile from the race site and walked. The path along the way was filled with fireflies; it was so cool.
When I got to transition, I had to put on my mask. There was a line as they were taking our temperatures to be allowed in. There was a lady 3 athletes in front of me without a mask. When they told her she couldn’t enter without one, she turned around and screamed “does anyone have a mask I can have.” There was no parking close to the race site, so going back to the car to get a mask was a big problem.
It was weird to have on the mask in transition but got everything set up and left transition to wait for the swim start. The start was a single file line. We had to stand 6 feet part and they put us in the water 15 seconds apart. The girl in front of me said “I’m slow, you will pass me.” I remember thinking, how do you know my pace? But she was right, I jumped in and passed her. I never saw another athlete. About 100 of the athletes were doing the sprint. So only 50 of us doing the olympic. We went in first. So very different from TriWaco where I got in and was pummeled by 100 of my competitors. So peaceful. And the water was cool. I had to keep reminding myself I was racing. Got out and ran to my bike to start this ride.
Two of the roads on this 4 street loop where serious hills. I mean serious. So I was either going 9 mph or 32 mph. I was struggling to figure out this synchro shifting, but by the end of the race, I had completely mastered it. I was riding up the worst hill with a father pulling his disabled son. That kind of inspirational sight is really one of the things I miss most about racing. On my fifth loop, it started to rain. Not hard, but I don’t ever ride in the rain. Much less ride in the rain going 32 mph downhill into a sharp turn where I could fly into the police car blocking the street or the cornfield. But I did it and conquered some fear.
When I got off the bike, I thought I had done terrible because I was comparing the bike split time to the one other Olympic race I have done. That was TriWaco, which is a very flat and fast course. But I kind of knew “no PR today” so I went into the run with the attitude “I am going to just enjoy this.”
The trail around the lake was beautiful. The sky was overcast and the air still felt pretty cool. I was going by other athletes and they were greeting me and I was encouraging them. Had a conversation with a guy doing his first triathlon ever. I knew it would not be his last because he was clearly having a ball. I miss that a lot about racing. The aid stations had bottled water but there were still volunteers there to encourage us. As I got to the last mile of the race, I slowed way down. I didn’t want the race to end. My coach even commented once she saw my data that I was “jogging.”
I crossed the finish line. A volunteer told me to pick up a bottle of water and one of the brown paper bags on the table. Inside was a banana and my race medal. No cheering crowds. No high fives. No spectators. But I still felt like a very lucky girl.
Turns out, I won my Age Group. My bike time wasn’t really that bad. Swim was pretty good. OK on the run, I shouldn’t have jogged. But I GOT TO RACE!!!!! It just felt great.
It was fun to be in Omaha. I got to see some of my family and it’s always fun to go back to the place where you grew up. We drove through Kansas on the way home and stopped and had dinner with David’s mom for her birthday.
Not sure when/if I will be able to race again in 2020 or when I will race again. I know I will someday but for now, I am going to keep training and trying to find small races that are happening. I can say for sure, I felt safer doing the Omaha Triathlon then I do going to the grocery store. The race team that put on this race followed the guidelines USAT set forth for return to safe racing and triathlon is a contactless sport and it was safe for sure.
My coach is encouraging me to take this time to get stronger and work on things that we don’t always have time to work on. That seems to be very sound advice. In the rear view mirror, maybe what is happening in 2020 will seem more clear. Because it’s very difficult to understand right now.
ironcheryl2018 